Confidence Building 101 Read online

  Confidence Building 101

  Copyright © 2019 Matt Tims

  *****

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – Fantasy…Football

  Chapter 2 – Chicks Love Candles

  Chapter 3 – All Alone

  Chapter 4 – Some Helpful Advice

  Chapter 5 – A Confidence Builder

  Chapter 6 – Giving Back

  Other Works & Contact Info:

  Chapter 1 – Fantasy…Football

  September 6th. Thursday. 8:57 PM.

  Scott sat up straight in his seat, solely focused on the action at hand. So much was on the line. He’d been researching for weeks. Hours were spent listening to podcasts and reading articles—desperate to gain an edge. He couldn’t fail again. This was the year everything would finally work out.

  “Go! Go! Go!” he chanted.

  Kevin’s eyes were locked on the same television as his friend, but the eighteen-year-old high school senior’s attitude couldn’t have been any more different. “No! Get him!”

  “Twenty, fifteen, ten…” Scott commentated from his spot on the sofa as the electrifying running back dashed along the sidelines. “Five…”

  A defensive player desperately lunged in one final attempt to prevent the ballcarrier from finding the end zone. His outstretched fingertips managed to trip the running back just outside the goal line, causing the ball to squirt from his grasp and bounce out of the field of play.

  “That’s a touchback!” Kevin shouted. “He fumbled it through the end zone!”

  “No, dude, he crossed the goal line before he lost it,” Scott calmly debated, attempting to convince himself that his fantasy running back had in fact just scored. “That’s a touchdown.”

  The referee held his arms in the air to signal a score.

  It was opening night of the NFL season; and while the two best friends weren’t athletes, who didn’t love a little fantasy football? It also didn’t hurt matters that they were playing against each other in their week one matchup either. Scott owned the running back who may or may not have scored, while Kevin was starting the defense that either caused a fumble or allowed a touchdown. There was a lot on the line.

  Kevin sat on the loveseat while Scott was directly across the room on the sofa. An open box of pizza rested on the coffee table in front of the couch, but food was the furthest thing from either of their minds at the moment. Both boys’ eyes were locked on the television as they anxiously awaited a replay.

  The camera zoomed in on the action which had occurred just outside the goal line, and replayed it in super slow motion. The ball appeared to loosen from the running back’s hands before he not only fell into the end zone, but prior to his knee touching the turf as well. It was hard to see this touchdown not being reversed.

  “Oh, come on!” Scott huffed. “Are you serious!?”

  Kevin was all smiles. “Told you, dude. That’s a touchback.”

  And things were only getting worse for Scott. His star fantasy football running back was holding his knee on the sidelines.

  “He’s hurt already!?” Scott shouted. “Are you kidding me!? It’s the first quarter!”

  Kevin could only laugh. His buddy had quite the history of drafting guys who would go on to tear their ACL in week one. These poor football players didn’t know what they were getting into after Scott drafted them.

  The longtime friends were fairly alike. In fact, they’d been mistaken for brothers or cousins a time or two. Both were six feet tall with brown eyes, thick heads of brown hair, and both possessed long, skinny frames—not scrawny—but not built either. Neither were jocks, but both enjoyed the flag football league they participated in every summer. They were average high school kids: video games, girls, and music capturing most of their attention. Well, a particular girl in Kevin’s case.

  “This is fuckin’ bullshit!” Scott continued to angrily rant. “They’re getting the cart for him too! He can’t even walk on his own!”

  “Hey! Language!”

  Kevin’s attention snapped to the kitchen. He was sitting in the family room with his buddy while the layout of the house had the kitchen fifteen or so feet away. A two stair step-up led to a little eating area with a table and chairs ten feet from them. Just beyond that was the actual kitchen.

  “I know, I know, but Mom, look at this! Every year!” Scott groaned.

  Lisa’s eyes peered into the family room to observe the television from her spot at the kitchen table. She’d been busy paying bills when her son’s vulgar choice of words grabbed her attention. There were few things in life she cared about less than football.

  “You aren’t going to speak that way in this house,” she firmly told her son. “All-day I have to listen to the jerks I work with curse. The last thing I want is for you to talk like them.”

  He huffed while rolling his eyes, “Yeah, I know, but he’s hurt already! I drafted him in the first round! How does this keep happening every year?”

  “Maybe you should let your mom draft your team next season,” Kevin chimed in with a chuckle. “How about that, Ms. B? I guarantee you would put together a better squad than Scott.”

  “My ass…” Scott commented before glancing back at the kitchen table to find his mother glaring at him. “‘My ass’ is off-limits now too? Are you serious?”

  Maybe she was a little too strict with her rules regarding cursing. It was just so unbearable having to listen to her coworkers cuss like sailors day in and day out. She was a legal secretary at a successful law firm, and sometimes it felt like her male coworkers were pulled straight from a movie script. “Fucks, shits, and cunts” were thrown around without hesitation, all of them thought they were irresistible playboys, and even the girls were catty with one another. It wasn’t the most enjoyable place to spend ten hours a day, but she did it for her son.

  Her ex-husband had bailed on the family a long time ago. Scott was only three at the time, and Lisa was an extremely overworked twenty-three-year-old when she unexpectedly became a single mother. The brunette was a full-time waitress, a part-time college student, and an around-the-clock mom before she woke one morning to find a note from her husband on the kitchen table.

  Stan had moved across the country.

  It wasn’t easy before the days of social media, but she was able to find out exactly what had happened. Her husband had met another woman. Well, “woman” was using that term loosely. He’d met an eighteen-year-old girl. The two apparently hit it off and he had an affair; and the next thing she knew, Stan was moving to California to start a new life with his fresh out of high school lover.

  Her parents stepped in and babysat countless number of times while she attempted to rebuild her life. Two years later she wrapped up school, but she still struggled to find a stable job. Another two years passed before a surprising opportunity presented itself three hours from the place she’d spent the entirety of her life. She took a chance and drove down for an interview, landed the job, and a month later she bought a house in their new town—but that didn’t solve their problems.

  Scott was always a shy kid. Her son was the type of boy who would stay by his mother at the park rather than wander off to find new friends, so a change of scenery wasn’t easy on him—especially now that they were one hundred miles away from his grandfather who he’d grown so close to over the years. But then a blessing entered her life. A miracle from above swooped in and made everything better.

  Kevin showed up.

  Seven-year-old Scott was in the second grade when he first talked to his future best friend during after-school care. Sure, she would’ve preferred her son come home to herself or his grandparents, but that wasn’t a viable option given their situation. She worked fifty hours a w
eek and they didn’t have any family or friends nearby, so Scott staying at school was the only realistic choice she had.

  The program was great, however. It was run by the school and the kids were able to play in the gym and outside on the playground as much as their little hearts desired. She would swing by at six o’clock and pick up a usually exhausted Scott who’d spent hours running around and having fun, but it wasn’t like that at first.

  Her quiet son struggled to make friends, and three hours in an after-school program instead of being at home was the equivalent of torture for the introverted youngster. The first week didn’t go so well as crying and complaining during the car rides home quickly became the norm. Those pains were short-lived though.

  A change in Kevin’s mother’s work schedule resulted in her son needing to stay after school as well. The two classmates who’d never talked to each other in class, immediately hit it off outside on the monkey bars. Tear-filled rides home were replaced by exciting stories. Quietness was swapped out for asking if he could have a sleepover on Saturday night. And while Lisa was thrilled that her son had found a friend, she didn’t know anything about the little brown-haired boy Scott would wave goodbye to when she picked him up. She quickly learned something that was still true to this day though: Kevin was an angel.

  Lisa and Kevin’s mom—who was also a single mother—originally made a schedule. Once a month the boys would spend the weekend at her house, and once a month they would be at Lisa’s house. It was a way to allow both women an opportunity to focus on their own love lives. You wouldn’t hear any complaints from either of them about getting some time off from being a mom; but as the years went by, that monthly ratio became more and more lopsided.

  Kevin’s mom remarried by the time and boys were in middle school, and Kevin may as well have been living with them on the weekends—not that Lisa cared. Her feelings toward her son’s friend only flourished as he aged. He’d become a second son to her in a lot of ways. She watched Scott attend concerts and parties, join clubs at school, and play in flag football leagues—all because of his sociable, more outgoing friend. He’d broken her somewhat reclusive child out of his shell, but there were never any issues with drugs or the two of them getting into trouble. She had a funny, personable, smart, eighteen-year-old son; and deep down, part of her knew that she had Kevin to thank.

  “Do you have any idea what my team would look like if my mom drafted it?” Scott asked his friend. A beer commercial played on the TV while they waited for the game to resume. “It would be a mess. She probably can’t name five guys in the NFL.”

  Kevin looked back at the table and asked, “You can name five guys, can’t you, Ms. B?”

  Lisa took a moment to think. “I know Tom Brady. He’s a hottie.”

  The two friends both immediately rolled their eyes, disgusted by what they’d just heard.

  “And who’s his backup?” she inquired. “They always show him too. He’s another cutie.”

  “You’re talking about Jimmy Garoppolo,” Scott said with an annoyed huff. “He plays for the 49ers now. Mom, you know two guys in the entire NFL, and they both played for the Patriots? Are you serious?”

  “It’s not my fault they have all the good-looking guys,” she nodded, getting a kick out of what she was doing to these two.

  “What’s going on in this house?” Kevin asked with a slight laugh. “You guys are Patriots fans now?”

  “Hey, I hate the Patriots!” Scott loudly declared. “You know that! Mom, I’m sickened from what I just heard.”

  She turned her attention back to the bills in front of her with a smirk.

  A video of Scott’s most important fantasy football player being carted off the field while he held back tears was what greeted the boys when the commercials ended. It was a very familiar picture for the guy with the worst luck in the history of fantasy football. It looked like he could kiss his one hundred dollar league fee goodbye.

  “You know he—”

  “Tore his ACL,” Scott finished Kevin’s sentence. “Yeah, I know…”

  “Are you guys going to finish this pop?” Lisa asked. There was probably half a glass of orange soda remaining in a two-liter bottle on the kitchen table. “Or do you want me to throw it in the fridge?”

  Kevin waited for his buddy to answer, but he was just staring at the TV, undoubtedly reflecting on another fantasy football season down the drain before it had even started. “I’m good, Ms. B.”

  “You want the rest of this, honey?” she called out to Scott.

  …

  “Scott!”

  Scott snapped out of his fog at the sound of his mother yelling at him. “Yeah, sure.”

  She hopped out of her seat and carried the drink over to the sofa her son was sitting on. The rest of the pop found its way into his mostly empty glass, and she couldn’t help but laugh while she poured the drink. He looked like a little kid who’d just found out that his dog died.

  “Honey, it’s just fantasy football…”

  He shot his mom a glare. “Just fantasy football? Take a guess at who constantly harasses me for thirteen weeks every year because my team is always terrible?”

  She took a peek at Kevin to find him with a big grin on his face.

  “But it shouldn’t be!” Scott went on. “I draft great teams, but Mom, like three guys suffer career-altering injuries every freakin’ year! I had a guy retire in the middle of the season two years ago!”

  “That was hilarious!” Kevin laughed.

  “No, it wasn’t!” Scott passionately argued. “How does a starting running back just retire in week eight? Huh? It’s ridiculous!”

  Kevin was attempting to play it cool and participate in the conversation, but that wasn’t the easiest thing to do at the moment. He’d been hanging out at this house for eleven years. How many nights had he slept in this very family room when he was younger? How many hours were spent playing video games upstairs in Scott’s room? How many meals did he eat at that exact kitchen table he could see out of his peripheral vision? And throughout the entirety of his time spent in this house, one thing remained unchanged: his infatuation with his friend’s mom.

  How tall was Ms. B? Five foot six? Maybe five foot seven? She may as well have been seven feet tall with those long, shapely legs which seemed to go on for days. His eyes trailed along her body as she now stood next to the couch with an empty soda bottle in hand, her attention on the same game they were watching.

  He attempted to control his lust as he now had the perfect side-profile view of her flawless body in a pair of black yoga pants. Her legs soon gave way to the world’s most exquisite backside. He was seven years old the first time his eyes had the pleasure of being treated to the angel that was this woman. Girls were icky back then. They had cooties, smelled weird, and were extremely annoying, but even his second grade self felt his insides tingle when she would give him a ride home. He really didn’t start caring about girls until three years later when he hit the fifth grade; and by that time, he was smitten by his first love.

  How was her ass so perky? She was thirty-eight years old and he’d never seen a better butt in his life: classmates, porn stars, models—you name it. The ass he was currently gazing at put every backside in the world to shame. It had to be from her vegan lifestyle and constant gym going habits, right? Whatever it was, it sure the hell worked.

  But things just kept getting better.

  Her pink spaghetti strap tank top showed off her flat tummy to a tee. The most he’d seen of her spectacular stomach was when her shirt would occasional lift while she reached for something. It was tight and toned, and he would seriously consider killing someone to get a peek at it without that pesky cotton fabric in the way. And then something came along that perfectly accentuated that amazing stomach. Something which only added to the majestic beauty he was fairly obsessed with.

  Big, eye-catching, mouth-watering, D cup breasts.

  Was she created in a lab? Was her body the work of some
evil genius who was hellbent on destroying his life? His friend’s mom was the one thing he knew that he could never have, but his level of lust when it came to her was unparalleled. He would shut off porn to think about her. He would check out the annual swimsuit magazine and immediately imagine what she would look like posing in a skimpy bikini on an exotic beach, instead of the models who consumed the pages. Her body would have been enough as is. How could you do better than a perfect ten? Well, then he looked at her face.

  Flawless skin, pouty lips, high cheekbones, and a little nose to match. Her sparkling blue eyes wrapped a stranglehold around his attention each and every time they glanced in his direction, and her long, flowing, dark brown hair that ran down to her chest always had him feeling giddy.

  Every inch of her was perfection. Every curve and bend of her body was a mystery that he wanted to explore. She was his dream woman.

  “Hey! You alive down there?”

  Kevin jolted out of his haze and smiled at the stunning brunette who was standing in front of him. Wait, wasn’t she just next to Scott? Did he zone out for that long? He could’ve sworn that he was just admiring her body from afar, but this wouldn’t be the first time he’d drifted off to fantasy world around her.

  “Did you say something?” he asked.

  “I asked if you were done three times,” Lisa chuckled. She was pointing down at his plate which showed the greasy, cheesy remnants of four slices of pizza.

  He picked up his dish and handed it to her accepting hand. “Yeah, sorry, I’m all done. Thanks.”

  She sent a slight smile in his direction before taking his plate and heading toward the dishwasher. His eyes instinctively tracked the back of her body with every stride she took. Those two little stairs she quickly hopped up on her way into the kitchen caused her butt cheeks to flex, and his cock swiftly twitched in response.

  “Oh, just as expected!”

  Kevin’s eyes shifted to Scott who was staring at his phone.

  “It says on Twitter that early reports are a torn ACL…” Scott groaned. “Shocking… I wonder if any of these guys know that my drafting of them is a death sentence? You think I should try to inform them before the season starts? So they can take out an insurance policy or something?”